


too natural to you

by Lexie



Category: Emmerdale
Genre: M/M, Speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:20:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8643871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lexie/pseuds/Lexie
Summary: "Robert, on what planet is today the day to say you wanna buy a place together?" Aaron snaps, and a fresh wave of guilt washes over Robert like a bucket of ice water's been thrown. "We playin' at happy families now, is it?"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Robert is the least reliable narrator and also much more forgiving of himself than I am, for the record. I'm not cosigning all of the thought processes here. WITH THAT CHEERY THOUGHT, here's some spoiler-speculating that's going to be proved wrong next week!

"You what?" says Aaron. "What you on about?"

"We could get it on the cheap at auction," says Robert, gesturing to the hulking shell of a building in front of them. "Make our own home, properly."

Aaron stares at him flatly. He's got that particular dogged, rude set to his mouth that Robert loves and dreads in equal measure. "Yeah, that's what I thought you said." He turns on his heel and starts walking back down the drive, hands jammed in his pockets against the cold.

Robert goes after him. "Hang on a minute," he tries, and Aaron whirls on him.

"Robert, on what _planet_ is today the day to say you wanna buy a place together?" Aaron snaps, and a fresh wave of guilt washes over Robert like a bucket of ice water's been thrown. "We playin' at happy families now, is it?"

"We _are_ a family," says Robert, and he presses on despite Aaron massively rolling his eyes. "And I'm sorry; I really am, you _know_ I am."

Aaron nods, his lips pressed together tightly. Robert can't believe he ever thought Aaron was difficult to read. He's an open book, if you know where to look. His jaw and cheek are twitching faintly. "You always are," he says. "Don't be sorry; _don't do this shite_."

Robert nods, flinching, and glances down. When he looks up again, Aaron's face has lost some of the red colour that was starting to suffuse it. He looks tired. Robert loves him. He doesn't want to make him look like that. He never means to hurt him. "Rebecca means _nothing_ to me," he tells Aaron, low and intent. "It's you. It's only you."

Aaron snorts. "Heard that before, haven't I."

Robert's mouth opens and closes helplessly. He doesn't know what to say to make it better, though he's thought of nothing but since the confrontation with Bex yesterday. He's thought scenario after scenario, speech after speech, and none of them were right; none will fix this and leave Aaron in his arms again. Aaron hasn't binned him altogether or chucked the ring at him, but that's about all the good Robert can say. 

For Andy's sake, Robert can't regret trying what he had to, including most of what he did to keep Rebecca sweet. But he does regret the kiss and what came after it. He'd take it back in an instant. Aaron's face yesterday, when he realised she was telling the truth, had been unspeakable. It was a million times worse than the massive row that had followed it. He'd been devastated.

But if Robert could only make Aaron understand that it was a one-time slip; that he wishes he'd told the truth, that he wishes he hadn't panicked and nearly set Lachlan free, that he stopped because of Aaron himself... He chances a half a step closer. Softly, he says, "You know, this could be the fresh start we need."

"Oh, you're _jokin'_ ," Aaron bursts out, and he turns and walks away.

Robert's left standing alone in the Mill Cottage drive. There's a sharp wind rising from the south; there's snow in the forecast overnight.

That could have gone better.

* * *

It's two long days of Aaron slamming scrap around outside the portacabin, and Aaron sleeping with his back a long, unyielding line of tension between them, and Charity complaining yet again about them fighting, and Chas eyeballing them both and – Robert is sure – grilling Aaron every moment she can get him alone, before it comes up again.

Much to Robert's surprise, after resigning himself to waiting for a better time, it's Aaron who starts it. 

"The hell would you even do with all that space?" Aaron says out of nowhere at the breakfast table. It's the first time in days he's willingly shared a table with Robert, even if he's sat buried behind a newspaper to sullenly, silently eat his toast.

"What?" says Robert around a mouthful of bacon.

Aaron slaps the newspaper down on the table. His face doesn't look any more thrilled than his voice had sounded. "The Mill is massive; it's way too big."

Robert hasn't been awake long enough for this. He stares uselessly at Aaron, for a few seconds, then he says, "Well, Liv _has_ been moaning about the size of her room."

"It'd be three times bigger if she'd pick up her socks," Aaron says darkly, then he grimaces. "I sound like me mum."

"I won't tell if you won't," Robert promises, his heart hammering at the prospect of a return to normalcy.

"Robert," Aaron says, seriously. "You lost the plot? That place is huge, _and_ expensive, _and_ it practically burned down."

"If you and I go in together, finish the work Rakesh was doing to convert it into flats–"

"Play landlady to a bunch of grotty flats; real convincing."

"It'd be a strong investment." Before he's even finished saying it, Robert knows it was the wrong thing to say. Aaron scoffs, looking away, his face closing off. "For our future. And it'd be a home for us," Robert persists doggedly. "You've got to admit this place is crowded. It'd be a bit much, don't you think, living with half your family even after we're married."

"So you want to buy the biggest place in the village, apart from Home Farm," Aaron says. "Is _that_ what this is about? That family again?" He shoves his chair back from the table with a loud scrape. "Where's your head at, mate?" 

"I'm–" Robert starts, but Aaron isn't having any of it.

"I'll be at the yard," he says, in a tone that doesn't extend an invitation, and he stomps upstairs.

Robert exhales and scrubs a hand over his face. "It's not about the Whites," he says to the empty kitchen.

 

After a minute, there are footsteps behind him. They're too light to be Aaron, especially considering that Aaron is still audibly slamming things around upstairs. 

Probably Charity, back to gloat yet again about them fighting. Robert sighs and turns around.

Instead, it's Liv coming in from the pub, dragging her backpack in one hand and tossing an apple up and down in the other. "You wanna buy Mill Cottage?" she asks.

"Earwigging again, I see," Robert says, and she rolls her eyes.

"Hard not to, the way you two go at it." She catches her apple again. "Why you even want that place? It's a dump."

"Yeah, and it's going on the cheap because of it," he says. "We could fix it up, make a mint leasing flats."

Liv pushes past the table and starts rummaging through the refrigerator. He can't see her face, but he reckons she's rolling her eyes again. That's always a safe bet, with Liv. 

Robert thinks about money. He does. When he spots an opportunity, he immediately, automatically starts doing the maths; the cash to be spent and made, the palms to be greased, the favours to be called in. It's how he's wired and it's gotten him a long way in life. He makes plans. He schemes. It's what he does, and it works, most of the time.

"It would mean we could move out," he says, watching Liv's back. "Pick out a flat of our own, in there; do it up however we like."

She's quiet a minute, and then she shuts the refrigerator with a heavy rattle of jars and bottles. She turns around and stares him down hotly. "You and Aaron?" He frowns, and before he can even say anything, Liv snaps, "I _heard_ you. After you get married, you don't wanna live with us anymore."

"I don't want to live with my mother-in-law and whatever Charity and Noah are, anymore," he corrects. "You'd be coming with us, obviously."

"Obviously," she mimics, and she folds her arms. "If I did, couldn't pawn me off on Chas anymore."

"You wouldn't have to clean the pub cellar anymore," he counters, and he sees the moment she almost smiles. "Though if you're feeling nostalgic, it'll be just across the village." Liv snorts a laugh, and Robert presses the advantage. "If you're going to eavesdrop, you should really stay for the entire conversation. Like I told Aaron, it's time you had a bigger room, don't you think?"

"Could do," Liv agrees, but her smile fades. "Aaron isn't keen."

Robert exhales into his mug of tea. "Yeah. You can say that again."

She's studying him, her look piercing. "What'd you do?"

He doesn't even bother disputing it anymore. "We're working it out," he says, with what's hopefully an air of finality. "But he doesn't want to go in, so that's that."

She nods, the wheels clearly turning.

"Liv," he says, warning. "Don't stick your oar in. Aaron doesn't want to. Leave it."

"What?" she says defensively, and then there are footsteps on the stairs and clattering in the corridor and Aaron bursts in. He looks around for a second, then his eyes fall on his sister and he points at her. " _You_. Late, again?"

Robert glances at his watch and winces when he sees the time. He should have been pushing Liv out the door to catch the bus.

"Was talking to Robert," says Liv. Aaron doesn't even spare him a glance, which is probably for the best; it'd just be an unfriendly one for keeping her here. "Besides, physics is pointless."

"Yeah, and that 'pointless' physics teacher's gonna ring me, _again_ , if you're not there. Come on, I'm takin' ya." When she doesn't start moving immediately, Aaron shoots a look up at the ceiling and then beckons to Liv impatiently. "Liv! _Now_."

Liv has turned the aggrieved sigh into an art form. She scoops up her backpack and storms past Robert.

Aaron, though, lingers. He says gruffly, without looking at him, "See you later, yeah?"

"–Yeah," says Robert, surprised and probably too eager, but Aaron's already gone.

* * *

Despite what Robert had hoped was a small thawing, Aaron works outside all day, clanging and banging out in the scrapyard. He only comes in for a brew with Adam in tow. Adam's been weird and distracted all week and doesn't seem to notice any tension; he and Aaron do their best mates song-and-dance, talking and laughing, until Robert's practically carving into the paperwork he's signing. 

In the afternoon, Robert caves on the idea of giving Aaron some space. He gets up and grabs a high-vis vest off the rack, a spare pair of gloves out of the other desk, and he steps out of the portacabin – just in time to see Aaron opening the driver's side door of his car. "Good," says Aaron, sounding like it's anything but. He jerks his head over at Adam, who is so far inside the bonnet of a car that he's only visible from the arse down. "Get stuck in, give him an 'and; he needs it." 

"Oi!" Adam objects from somewhere deep inside the engine, laughing, and Aaron gets into his car and drives off with a crunch of gravel.

After a second, Adam pushes himself upright and looks over at Robert, who's still standing on the stairs, squinting at Aaron's car turning out of the scrapyard lot. Aaron's taken his new car, not the scrapyard truck, and he's left his vest behind, so it's not a scrap pickup he's after. 

Adam sighs. "You're not actually going to help, are ya?"

"I'm more of a silent investor, really," says Robert, and he goes back inside.

 

Robert has just finished a call with a potential client for the haulage firm – a wholesaler in Sheffield looking to move a load of jewelry to Torquay; cheap tat, but there's money in it – when there are car doors slamming and Liv bursts in through the portacabin door. Not a scrap pickup, then – a Liv pickup. 

"–won't even _think_ about it!" she's exclaiming. "It'd be cracking!"

Aaron's hot on her heels. "I said _no_ , Liv." He shoots a dark glare at Robert. "You put her up to this, then?" he demands.

Easy enough to guess what _this_ is about. Liv stuck her oar in. Of course she did. She's incapable of keeping her thoughts to herself. Most of the time, Robert actually likes that about her; she's a whip-smart, funny kid. Most of the time.

"No," says Liv hotly, so there's that, at least. 

"She heard us at breakfast," says Robert. "We had a chat but I told her you were dead against it–"

Aaron throws up his hands. "Oh, cheers for that."

"–so we wouldn't do it." Robert shoots Liv a warning look. "End of."

"I don't get it," Liv says to Aaron, ignoring Robert entirely. "Why're you bein' like this? I thought you'd _want_ to move out. Is it the money?"

Aaron's face takes on a deeply startled, offended cast that would probably be a little funny, in another situation. He looks like a scalded cat. He gives Liv a look that's judgmental to the bones – the facial equivalent of 'what are you like??' – but Liv pushes on.

" 'Cause I've got money, I could go in."

" _Liv_ ," says Aaron, the sound punched out of him, and she finally stops. His shoulders are practically up around his ears. "I'd _never_ take your money."

"You could," she persists, chin tilted up. "I want you to. Aaron, I wanna do this."

"It's _yours_ ," he says, hard, "and we don't need it, okay?"

She sets her mouth, but finally sullenly nods. "Fine. Whatever."

"Why don't you go do your homework?" he says, and she glances over at the empty desk beside Robert's. "At the pub." Liv's eyes snap back to Aaron again and she looks as though she's going to argue – she looks like she's set for a whole night of arguing, which bodes well for their evening – but Aaron apparently isn't in the mood for any backchat. "Need a word." He jerks his head in Robert's direction.

Liv makes a cringing face at Robert, eyes wide for comic effect, as she leaves. 'Wouldn't want to be you,' she manages to say without actually saying a word, though it isn't entirely unsympathetic.

Aaron and Robert look at each other once the door has banged shut behind her, Robert still sat behind the desk and Aaron leaning against the wall across the portacabin with his arms crossed. "Set me up for that, didn't ya?" Aaron says, pinching the bridge of his nose. 

"Not intentionally," says Robert. "She's got a mind of her own, you know." Aaron looks doubtful, at best, his face still set in hard lines. Robert sighs and tilts back and forth, a little, in his chair. "Maybe a bit, yeah. Sorry."

"I'd never let her use her money for anything like this," Aaron says, again. "It's hers and I'm glad she took it in the end. It'll set her up."

There's clearly something else bothering him. Robert remembers the summer all too well; their massive row over Aaron taking the money, too. "But?" he asks warily.

"You really think I could live in a house Gordon's dirty guilt-money bought?" Aaron says, low and emphatic, spitting the last few words. For a second, it's like he's forgotten Robert is even there; then he looks at him like he's daring him to say otherwise.

It stings that Robert's said and done things that would make him think he _would_ want to. But that sting is in the back of Robert's mind. What's in the front is Aaron, standing there vulnerable. It's always Aaron in the front of his mind. 

Robert gets up, hardly even aware he's doing it. "No," he says, coming around the desk. "I had no idea she was thinking it. She _wasn't_ thinking, I'm sure." Aaron wouldn't cope, living in a house that was purchased with the help of money that came from Gordon. Robert knows that; Liv would, too, if she took a second to think about it.

"What _you_ thinking?" Aaron shoots back, standing his ground as Robert comes to stand in front of him.

"That I know I've messed up, badly, and I've hurt you," Robert says, and he reaches out and puts his hands on Aaron's arms, just above his elbows, "and I'd do anything to take it back, I _swear_." His voice turns thick, at the end, beyond his control.

Aaron doesn't shake him off. It's a start. "Is that what this is about?" he asks, looking up and really _talking_ to Robert for the first time in days. His face is open again and it feels like a punch to the chest. Aaron shakes his head at him. "Robert, I could _kill_ you, yeah, but if you think you can make it up with a house, you've got another thing comin'."

"No," says Robert, immediately, "that's not– I _love_ you, and I'm made up you're marryin' me, and I want to start a home, properly, with you and Liv. That's all." He squeezes Aaron's arms, his thumbs tucked into the crook of Aaron's elbows. "But if you don't want this, if you'd rather stay at the pub–" Then he'll stay, he's going to say. He'd do anything for Aaron. It's been all right living with Aaron's family in ways he'd definitely never have expected, and–

"Are you taking the mick?" Aaron interrupts, incredulous. "Obviously I don't wanna live with Charity and me mum for the rest of me life."

"Then why're you so against it?" Robert asks. Before Aaron can say anything, he hastily adds, "I'm not having a go. I want to know."

"It's a bit grand, isn't it?" Aaron scrunches up his face. "Mill Cottage." He tosses a look at Robert. "Suppose that's you all over, though."

"Me?" says Robert. "Nah."

Aaron snorts and Robert smiles with him, desperately relieved to see it. Aaron glances down and, after a second, slowly raises his hands and sets them on Robert's waist. They feel warm, even through Robert's jacket. "You're soft," Aaron says, the fondness that Robert has missed still tugging at the corner of his mouth. "This is daft."

"I just want to make you happy," says Robert, aching with the truth of it. He rubs Aaron's arms. "I think we could be, there."

"Don't need the Mill for that," Aaron says, shooting him a hard look. "Just stop with Rebecca, Robert. Enough. She's trouble and you're a flipping idiot." 

'Idiot,' his tone suggests, is letting Robert off incredibly lightly. It might be. But Robert never meant to hurt him.

"I know," says Robert immediately. "I know. It's done, I promise." After the attempted blackmail and the vindictive stunt Bex pulled yesterday, Robert is definitely through with having an ally at Home Farm. He's itching to retaliate, but Aaron–

Aaron's not finished. He's looking at Robert grimly, without any of the warmth and the regard that Robert has come to crave in a way he never would have understood, if someone had tried to tell him two years ago. "Anything like it happens again and we're done here." 

Aaron means it. Robert knows he does. It might be the most honest thing Aaron's ever said to him, which, given the things Aaron has said to him over the years, is remarkable. If Robert so much as looks as Rebecca again – Rebecca, who he hasn't even wanted in _years_ – Aaron will leave him, and the thought of it is like a knife to the side.

Aaron's eyes are drilling into him. "I've got to be able to trust you." _And I don't now_ , says his sceptical face; it fairly screams it. It takes Robert's breath away. 

All that time spent showing Aaron he can rely on him; all that time reassuring Aaron that he's the one Robert wants, and all it took was ten seconds of stupidity to put him right back at the start. "What excuse is it, then; you were only thinkin' of Andy or you weren't thinkin' at all?" Aaron had spit at him, after Bex left, and Robert still isn't sure of his answer. 

"I want you to be able to trust me," Robert says softly, his throat tight. "I'll do better. I'll _be_ better, for you."

Aaron's mouth twists. His hands flex on Robert's waist; fist into the sides of his jacket. Robert lets himself step in a little closer. They're both breathing raggedly. Robert doesn't trust his voice.

Aaron clears his throat. "So," he says. "Mill Cottage." He squints. " _Really_?"

"It's an opportunity; that's all," Robert says. "There'll be others. Smaller, if you want."

"You're gonna give up, just like that?" Aaron says dubiously.

"It's not about competing with the Whites," Robert says, knowing what he's risking by bringing them up, and, sure enough, Aaron's face clouds over. "It's about you, _and_ Liv. If you're not made up, I don't want to do it."

"Well," says Aaron. "Good." Robert wants to sway in and sag with relief against him, but he can still feel the tension thrumming in Aaron's body. So instead, he shuts his eyes and nods.

Aaron blows out a breath that washes across Robert's chin. "Go on, then," he says, expectantly, and Robert's eyes snap open again. Aaron lifts his eyebrows at him, impatient. "I know you've got a speech ready. Gonna give it or what?"

"You want to hear about the Mill?" Robert asks cautiously.

"I'll hear it." He looks guarded, his face serious. "That's all I'm promisin'."

"That's enough," says Robert, and they look at each other. He knows what they're both thinking of. 

Robert needs to say it again. He'll say it for the rest of his life, and he'll never make Aaron doubt it again. "Aaron–"

"Don't," says Aaron, warning, with a small shake of his head, and he steps back. "Offer's not gonna last, mate."

 _They're_ going to last. Robert is determined. He'll do anything.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wondering how in the hell the situation goes, in a day, from 'Robert kissed Rebecca and went to extreme lengths to hide it,' to 'Liv and Robert want to buy a house and be a happy little family with Aaron.' This was a pinch-my-nose take on how I think it might play out. We'll see next week! I'll be yelling about it on Tumblr; [come and yell with me](http://do---one.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Title is from "You Lie" by the Band Perry. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
>  **EDIT, 11/25:** Well, I've seen the new preview and I definitely did not write with Rebecca dropping the bomb in front of the entire pub, in mind, so it officially took less than a day for this to get jossed! A NEW RECORD.


End file.
